Smoking barrels.

As we spoke about yesterday, Stalker 2 is now less than two weeks away from releasing on Xbox Game Pass - and the team has just gone into detail on the game's arsenal of weaponry ahead of its launch.

As showcased above in the game's new 'Smoking Barrels' trailer, developer GSC Game World has detailed exactly what gear you can get yours hands on in the wastelands of Stalker 2 this month. Since its announcement, this game's gunplay has looked impressive - and we're even more excited to properly go hands on with it after this new trailer.

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A new report claims that Amazon is officially developing a TV show based on Bioware’s hit sci-fi franchise, Mass Effect. This follows previous reports indicating that Amazon wanted to make a Mass Effect show. Seems the retail giant is finally doing it.

Not sure how I feel about this.

Take-Two has sold indie publisher Private Division to an unknown buyer in the wake of shuttering Roll7 and Intercept Games, saying that it wants to focus on its core and mobile businesses going forward. While virtually all of Private Division's live and unreleased games will go to the new buyer, Take-Two says it will continue to support No Rest for the Wicked, the recently-released action RPG from Moon Studios that's currently in early access.

Take-Two announced the move during Wednesday's earnings results, saying in a statement, "We are grateful for the contributions that the Private Division team has made to our company and are confident that they will continue to achieve success in their new home."

The Private Division sale follows Take-Two's decision to wind down indie studios Roll7 and Intercept Games, both of which operated under the label's umbrella. An IGN report at the time revealed Take-Two's plans to offload the label and that it had found interest from a private equity firm, with discussions faciliated by individuals with connnections to Moon Studios leadership. It's unclear whether that firm ultimately followed through on its interest.

Private Division was founded in 2017 with the goal of provide funding and support to "triple-I" game such as The Outer Worlds. Its upcoming releases include Tales of the Shire, the cozy Lords of the Rings game that was recently delayed into 2025, and an untitled action-adventure game from Game Freak codenamed Project Bloom.

Take-Two has spent much of 2024 trying to sell Private Division, telling employees in April that it would no longer support the label and laying off many of its employees. A small group has remained to continue support No Rest for the Wicked as well as Private Division's other upcoming games. Take-Two, for its part, is turning even more of its focus toward Grand Theft Auto VI, which it still expects to release in fall 2025.

"Command your insect legions in epic battles".

One of the games from our November 2024 Xbox releases roundup that we've been keeping an eye on, but haven't really delved into here at Pure Xbox, is Empire of the Ants. This is described as a "photorealistic, third-person real-time strategy game" in which it's your job to lead an army and compete in battles throughout a microscopic world.

There's a lot to like about this game on paper, such as its beautiful Unreal Engine 5 graphics, its potential for epic "tactical and strategic" conquests, and the fact that it supports both solo play and online multiplayer with others.

Microsoft's Xbox Game Pass titles for November are:

Metal Slug Tactics (Cloud, Console, and PC) - 5th November (Game Pass Ultimate, PC Game Pass)

Go Mecha Ball (Console) - 6th November (Now with Game Pass Standard)

Harold Halibut (Xbox Series X S) - 6th November (Now with Game Pass Standard)

The Rewinder (Console) - 6th November (Now with Game Pass Standard)

Turnip Boy Robs a Bank (Console) - 6th November (Now with Game Pass Standard)

Goat Simulator Remastered (Cloud, PC, and Xbox Series X S) - 7th November (Game Pass Ultimate, PC Game Pass)

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 (Cloud, PC, and Xbox Series X S) - 19th November (Game Pass Ultimate, PC Game Pass)

Xbox Game Pass games leaving on 15th November:

Dicey Dungeons (Cloud, Console, and PC)

Dungeons 4 (Cloud, Console, and PC)

Goat Simulator (PC)

Like a Dragon: Ishin! (Cloud, Console, and PC)

Like a Dragon: The Man Who Erased His Name (Cloud, Console, and PC)

Persona 5 Tactica (Cloud, Console, and PC)

Somerville (Cloud, Console, and PC)

Review aggregation site Metacritic has spoken out in response to the ongoing review bombing of Dragon Age: The Veilguard by online commenters upset at the game's inclusive characters and themes.

BioWare's latest Dragon Age epic holds a "generally favourable" review average of 84 on Metacritic, based on a consensus of 54 critics' scores.

But the game's Metacritic user score is listed as just 3.8 out of 10, with a majority of user opinions falling in the starkly negative range. Looking at some of the most recent reviews at the time of writing, these include numerous scores of zero out of 10 for content in the game repeatedly described as "woke".

"Awful dialogue and obviously some woke agenda psyop," reads a zero out of 10 review from one user. "This is censorship at its worst."

"Woke kill the game," wrote another user who rated the game with a zero. "But gameplay is nice."

"This is what happens when you try to force push DEI [Diversity, equity, and inclusion] and sexual ideology in a fantasy game," wrote a third, who also scored the game with a zero.

Countless other examples are also visible, some of which include slurs and abuse we won't reproduce here. A number of commenters note they are leaving repeat responses as their earlier ratings have been deleted, presumably by Metacritic moderators.

By contrast, the 13,006 user reviews for Dragon Age: The Veilguard currently on Steam - which requires you actually play the game before leaving a review - are "Mostly Positive".

Dragon Age: The Veilguard features a companion character who identifies as non-binary, who the game's protagonist Rook can be supportive of. Rook themselves can also identify as transgender if the player chooses.

In a statement to Eurogamer acknowledging the backlash to Dragon Age: The Veilguard on its site, a spokesperson for Metacritic parent company Fandom said its site was a "place of belonging for all fans".

"We take online trust and safety very seriously across all our sites including Metacritic," the spokesperson said. "Metacritic has a moderation system in place to track violations of our terms of use. Our team reviews each and every report of abuse (including but not limited to racist, sexist, homophobic, insults to other users, etc) and if violations occur, the reviews are removed."

Last year, Fandom confirmed to Eurogamer it was "evolving [its] processes and tools to introduce stricter moderation" following similar reactions to Horizon Forbidden West's DLC, Burning Shores.

"It is the strongest and loudest answer BioWare could have mustered for the people still doubting whether it could do it," our Bertie wrote in Eurogamer's Dragon Age: The Veilguard review. "The answer is yes, emphatically. The Veilguard is spectacular. BioWare is back."

The decade-long wait for another game in BioWare's epic fantasy series has paid off big time as the newly released Dragon Age: The Veilguard is already breaking records.

After its own rocky development journey, Dragon Age: The Veilguard finally released just yesterday to both solid reviews and a record number of players on Steam. According to SteamDB estimates, the fourth Dragon Age game pulled in more than 70,000 concurrent players who were fighting to protect the Veil all at the same time. The RPG has also topped the platform's 'Top Sellers' chart and even passed Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 on the list.

Publisher EA is probably chuffed since The Veilguard is now its one of its biggest single-player launches on the platform, narrowly passing Star Wars Jedi Survivor's peak concurrent numbers, which were already impressive a year ago, but not quite reaching The Sims 4's 96,000 peak record - and who can blame 'em? It's The Sims.

Developer BioWare can still throw a party and call the game a record-breaker since it did set a new record for the studio itself. The Veilguard overtook Mass Effect: Legendary Edition's 59,000-player peak to become the company's biggest Steam release of all time.

We don't fully know how The Veilguard is stacking up alongside BioWare's biggest hits, however. EA famously stopped releasing games on Steam in 2011, and only began again in 2019, so we don't actually have a concrete idea of how big the crowds were for Mass Effect 3 or Dragon Age: Inquisition on launch day. Either way, after a decade of low points from Anthem and Mass Effect: Andromeda to internal troubles and layoffs, it's good to see the storied studio find success doing what it does best.

I haven't personally played it yet but I'm hearing a lot of mixed reactions. Mostly about inclusion and diversity related things. Anyone play? What are your thoughts?

After a year on sale, Alan Wake 2 is finally close to recouping the money Remedy spent on developing and marketing the game...

Assassin's Creed franchise boss Marc-Alexis Coté has addressed the online backlash which has swirled around the main characters of Assassin's Creed Shadows, the subsequent impact it has had on the game's development staff, and the attempts by bad faith commenters to disrupt and dissuade creative teams from telling stories featuring diverse and inclusive characters in general...

Ubisoft has released its first-ever blockchain game, the tactical NFT battler Champions Tactics: Grimoria Chronicles.

The company announced the game last June after years of dabbling in blockchain, but has only now quietly launched it.

The game is on PC and free to start, though players can purchase figurines with which to battle using either in-game gold or cryptocurrency. These figurines are NFTs and can be bought on the game's marketplace from anywhere between $7 to $64,000 (almost £50k).

It appears to be possible to play the game without purchasing figurines, though those willing to pay the extortionate prices will surely have more success in battles.

Battles themselves are turn-based affairs against other players with squads of three figurines.

Francois Bodson, studio director at Ubisoft Paris, told IGN the game "offers deep strategic gameplay featuring unique in-game assets and several exciting innovations", comparing it to a physical trading card game.

Here's the statement in full: "The team inside the Ubisoft Paris studio developing Champions Tactics: Grimoria Chronicles partnered with Ubisoft’s Strategic Innovation Lab and Oasys to ensure that our use of blockchain was done in service of delivering new and innovative gaming experiences for our players. Our shared goal is to explore new ways to play alongside bringing more value to players based on empowerment and ownership. Champions Tactics offers deep strategic gameplay featuring unique in-game assets and several exciting innovations. These include millions of procedurally generated figurines, each with distinct stats, assets shaped directly by players' choices, and an open marketplace letting players compose their teams on a peer-to-peer basis - much like a physical trading card game. For months, we have collaborated closely with our community through events and beta phases to build and refine Champions Tactics. We’re excited to keep expanding and enhancing the experience together."

Ubisoft did not comment on the game's Adults Only rating, presumably for its blockchain basis and use of cryptocurrency.

Back in December 2021, Ubisoft launched its own NFT platform called Quartz, with Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Breakpoint as the first game to offer a beta trial. It did not fare well, appearing to have initially only sold 15 NFTs.

Still, Ubisoft's NFT bosses stated in an interview afterwards that players just "don't get it".

It's interesting, therefore, for Ubisoft to have still released this project, considering other developers have slowly backpedalled on their enthusiasm for cryptocurrency.

That includes EA boss Andrew Wilson, after describing NFTs as "an important part of… the future of our industry".

"I believe that collectability will continue to be an important part of our industry and the games and experiences that we offer our players," he later said during an earnings call in February 2022.

"Whether that's part of the NFT and the blockchain? Well, that remains to be seen. And I think the way we think about it, is we want to deliver the best possible player experience we can. And so we're going to - we will evaluate that over time. But right now, it's not something that we're driving audience."

I'm a huge fan of the series so I'm glad to see if is getting some good reviews. I just wish the combat was more like Origins. Most seem to love it though.

Starbound, originally releasing on Steam in 2016, launches for the first time on Xbox with full controller support, and a toggleable auto-aim accessibility feature. Players can explore the universe of Starbound with a crew of up to 4 friends. Futhermore, Starbound will also contain all the free content updates which are carried over from the …

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